Products in commerce typically travel from a place of origin to a temporary or final destination. The logistical operation defining the travel modes and travel time is often referred to as a supply chain. For example, fresh produce travels from a point of origin in which it is harvested to a point of retail sale such as a grocery market. Pharmaceuticals travel from a point of manufacture to pharmacy shelves or health care facilities. Electronic devices travel from points of manufacture to individual consumer electronic dealers. Supply chains often involve various types of travel and multiple warehouse storage facilities. An automobile, for example, may be manufactured, stored briefly at the assembly plant, shipped by rail to a dock, shipped overseas to a warehouse facility, shipped by rail or truck again to a retail dealer, and then stored on the dealer lot.
Supply chains often involve travel through, or storage in, a variety of climates. In some cases, products are relatively hardy and only require a minimum amount of protection against climate extremes. Other products, however, require maintenance of shipping climate conditions. For example, fresh food stuffs require maintenance of conditions that do not encourage spoilage, such as high temperature and humidity. Some pharmaceuticals may require refrigeration at all times.
While efforts are made to ensure that products in a supply chain are protected from environmental conditions that will result in their deterioration, the complexity of some supply chains makes it difficult to ensure compliance with product requirements. As a result, even with a reasonable amount of planning, at least some percentage of products are effectively destroyed (i.e. rendered ineffective, unhealthy or inedible) due to adverse environmental conditions in the supply chain.
Efforts have been made to provide tracking of exposure to environmental extremes during the supply chain. One such effort is the use of labels on product shipping containers that have a feature that undergoes a permanent alteration if the product is exposed to temperature extremes for more than a minimal amount of time. More sophisticated “smart labels” have been proposed that use microelectromechanical sensors to sense one or more conditions and store condition information in memory on the smart label itself.
The labels that track environmental conditions provide two advantages that improve supply chain operation. First, the labels provide accountability at each link in the supply chain, thereby increasing the care that is taken at each link. Second, the labels allow for immediate identification of potentially bad product, which may be disposed of before the product is purchased and used, possibly causing harm.
At least one disadvantage of the above described environment tracking labels is that ultimately they cannot prevent poor environmental conditions. Moreover, the accountability created by the labels may result in overcompensation for environmental conditions (e.g. over-cooling) to avoid damage, which can be inefficient.
As a consequence, there is a need for system and method that can alleviate product damage during supply chain operations. There is a further need to alleviate product damage without implementing inefficient practices.